


Potential

by Deathtouch



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bound and Hooded, Crying, Fix-It, Head Shaving, Inspection, Kneeling, Leeching, M/M, Objectification, Rope Bondage, Scolding, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:36:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deathtouch/pseuds/Deathtouch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>☛ in which roose saves robb from dying after the red wedding</p><p>
  <i>When they had pulled him from the river he was naked and nearly blue. Water gushed from his mouth and his arrow-studded chest convulsed as his body tried to expel all he'd swallowed. The river had made the blood of his wounds run freely, and he was a bright red mess by the time Roose got a good look at him.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potential

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crookedneighbour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedneighbour/gifts).



> this is a birthday to gift to the very charming and wonderful [loveyourcrookedneighbour](http://loveyourcrookedneighbour.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!! lycn wins the bronze medal for longest wait for a bday fic from me! they had to wait two months, but hopefully this fic was worth it! happy (belated) birthday lycn! please enjoy!!
> 
> thanks to whipjacked on twitter for story advice, duckyaisha on twitter for asoiaf knowledge and fact checking, tender-vittles on tumblr for a proof read
> 
> and most importantly thanks to my beautiful beta [subwaywolf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SubwayWolf/pseuds/SubwayWolf) who banged this fic out in no time! and he didn't even say anything about fixing the same mistakes i always make, the ones i should know better about. he beta'd it and did all the hard work and put up with my terrible grammar and silly errors they same way he always does, with grace and poise and excellence. thank you so much subwaywolf! thank you thank you thank you!

"Mother," was the first thing he said.   
  
Roose had never been called that before.   
  
His eyes rolled and his head lolled and he reached out blindly. Roose let him grope for a minute before he extended his own hand for the boy to find. He was still strong and his grip was firm despite his devastating injuries. He tried to speak again, but his voice failed him. Tears rolled from the corners of his eyes into his curls. His grip slackened suddenly, and he was gone again. Roose stared at him for a moment longer.   
  
When they had pulled him from the river he was naked and nearly blue. Water gushed from his mouth and his arrow-studded chest convulsed as his body tried to expel all he'd swallowed. The river had made the blood of his wounds run freely, and he was a bright red mess by the time Roose got a good look at him.   
  
Idiots the Frey's were for tossing his body away so carelessly. It had been Roose's idea, of course, but they should never have listened to him. One man wanted to cut off the boy king's head and sew the direwolf's head in its place. That was a wise idea. It was needlessly cruel, but a boy without a head was not like to get up and walk again. A boy with a few arrow holes in him, though, might recover. If he was strong enough.  
  
Roose considered the way his hand had been clutched at so desperately. It was a poor measure of strength, but it made him wonder... would the boy really pull through?   
  
"Alert me if he wakes again," Roose said before taking his leave. 

 

* * *

  
They kept his head sealed beneath black fabric with a chord of rope that cinched around his long, narrow neck. It was not his face that was like to give him away, but his injuries. It did not suit to clothe him though, so as an extra measure of security they kept him away from the others as best they could. It would not do to have any Freys recognizing him.   
  
Shame that it was, they had to shear his lengthy auburn curls as well. Roose had not been there to see that happen, and he regretted it deeply. Without his silly crown of swords and grey cloak he was most easily recognizable by his hair, so in the name of safety it had been cut. Apparently it had been matted by river water and blood anyway, another reason to see it gone.   
  
They kept his hands tied behind him with a length of rope as well. He was not yet strong enough to run, but a little restrictive bondage was helpful in keeping him check. Not yet out of the clear from the wounds he had suffered and near death as he may be, the boy was still wily. He writhed and kicked and whined low in his throat. Usually his struggles were quieted after he worked himself into a fit of wet cough. He chafed his wrists raw on the rope that bound them turning pale flesh pink and then red.   
  
The road to Moat Cailin was long and travel was all-consuming. They were stopped as often as they were moving, and the pace was slower than Roose would have liked. Every morning they broke down their tents just to make camp again a ways down the road, and after so long spent following the king-in-the-north to war, Roose was eager to head back to the north; to his home.   
  
That did not mean he had no time for his new play thing. The boy was always brought to him after the sun had set, when it was too dark to see who exactly it was that the pair of Bolton guards were dragging to Roose's tent. It was the only time the hood of black fabric was removed from his head. He looked so different without his curls. Roose was a patient man, though; he would wait for them to grow back.   
  
In the firelight Roose would take stock of his wounds, assessing the changes from day to day. Everything seemed to be healing well enough. There would always be scars marring his fair skin, but Roose did not mind them. The boy had freckles of varying shades and sizes that dotted his shoulders and most of his back. The scars were a part of that in their own way.   
  
There was an almost inexplicable pride that came with seeing those arrow wounds, knowing that he had caused them. What Roose could not abide were the burns that came from wrists being rubbed raw on rope. The boy was responsible for those injuries himself, and Roose disapproved. He made that clear with concise statements of disappointment, and a soft scolding tone.   
  
"You know better," were the words of guilt he often laid on.  
  
There was nothing quite like seeing the boy on his knees. It was almost as though he belonged there. It was much more becoming than the way he’d stood tall with his chest proud, hand resting comfortably on the nape of his direwolf’s neck on the field of battle. The boy had been made not to be a king, but for this instead.   
  
He seemed somewhat shy of the scrutiny both his injuries and the rest of his body received when he was alone with Roose. Often he would turn his head away and glance tearfully to the floor, as if not looking at the man would save him from something - some measure of humiliation, perhaps?   
  
He was quiet when they were together. Roose thought that maybe he would fight or curse or question him, but the boy seemed disinclined to speak. He didn’t utter a word. That was just fine. Roose preferred him this way. Perhaps the defiance had been washed away from him in the river, or only caught up with him when he was alone with his thoughts hooded and tied up.   
  
He did surprise Roose once by speaking. After weeks of travel and time to heal his small voice croaked one single word, tired and weary.   
  
“Why?” the boy asked, eyes shifting to glance up at Roose while his face remained turned away.   
  
Roose admired the curve of the boy’s jaw.   
  
“Hush,” he bid him. There were no answers for Robb here. 

 

* * *

  
It was a long time coming but they were finally home. Well, Roose was home. Robb did not know this place. He had been to the Dreadfort once, but it wasn't likely that he even remembered it. Though… perhaps. He had been so young the last time he’d been here, so it was hard to say.  
  
It was almost nine years ago that Ned Stark had done the courtesy of riding out to the Dreadfort to conduct business and visit with Roose. It was not customary that a Warden to go visiting Lords or bannermen, in fact things were usually the opposite. Ned liked to visit the different houses in the North every so often, though; it kept him well-connected and well-liked. He had brought little Robb Stark along with him, a lord in training. He had soft auburn curls even then, and was eager to show off his sword fighting skills in the yard.  
  
They had only stayed a few days, Ned and Robb and the handful of household guard that had been brought along with them. Long enough for the boy to grow curious and go wandering around the Dreadfort on his own after nightfall. Roose suspected he was looking for the flayed skin of his ancestors rumored to be hidden away somewhere. All that he found was the maester’s chambers where the lord of the Dreadfort was being leeched.   
  
Lounging naked and spotted with black, bloodsucking worms, Roose saw him there in the doorway. Robb had been peeking just enough around the corner to see. He gazed wide eyed into the torch-lit room, trying to understand what was happening within.   
  
Roose nodded to his own son in the room with him. Domeric had been softly plucking the strings to his hand held harp. He glanced around, and the soft soundtrack to the leeching ceased as he spotted Robb by the door. He put the instrument down and made his way to the doorway.   
  
“Hello, little lord," Domeric greeted Robb kindly. “Have you lost your way?”  
  
Robb might have been embarrassed about being caught but it didn’t show. He took Domeric’s hand in his own and let himself be lead back to the guest bed chambers he was sleeping in.    
  
Roose could not tell if Robb remembered that visit or not. He barely reacted to anything anymore. Though he had been revived from the water and healed of his wounds, there was so little life left in him. He went where he was told, he stayed when he was told, he did as he was asked, he did not question, and he had given up on any struggles or passive resistance.   
  
They still took care to keep him hidden away. The Dreadfort was half filled with Freys now; wards and wives alike. On top of that, the horrible creature Ramsay paraded around with its missing fingers and leather collar might recognize the boy king from his past life. It was better that those two did not see each other, not ever. They would be kept in the dark about the fact that the other was still alive, and the knowledge of how close they were to one another would never be realized by either of them.  
  
It was imperative for Roose to keep the boy a secret, so he did. That was just fine. It meant he got to keep Robb all to himself, and he liked it that way.  


* * *

  
Roose no longer needed to keep him tied at the wrist, and the boy had not seen a black hood in months. He knelt at the foot of Roose’s bed like the figurehead of a ship, elegant but fixed in his position. He was not shown a cell in the dungeon, but it was likely that he found Roose’s bedchamber its own kind of prison.   
  
Whether it was the remnant pain of his injuries, the interminable solitude, the knowledge that his family and bannermen had been slaughtered, or something else that had broken the boy, Roose could not say. The only thing he was sure of was that Robb was not as unaffected as he looked. He was stoic and solemn but underneath that mask he was suffering. Roose found this suffering quite beautiful.  
  
He did not require the boy for anything other than his presence, but Roose did sometimes use him for other things. The boy suffered through those uses, often undignified, the same as he suffered through everything else. There was something special about the way tears formed in his eyes, so crystalline and pure. His face was one meant for crying.  
  
While he did not raise his voice to question or confess concerns, he sometimes wept. Quietly, pretending as though there was nothing wrong at all.  
  
He did have within him one surprise. Mirroring the way he’d spoken up, just the once, in Roose’s tent on their way to Moat Cailin.  _Why,_  the boy had asked then.  
  
“Why did you keep me alive?” he asked now. His voice was hoarse from disuse. He knelt at Roose’s feet and did not dare to look up.  
  
His hair was growing back. It was brilliant red in the firelight. It was short enough still that it did not curl, only a gentle wave at best. It would continue to grow tough, and Roose was eager to see it long again. He relished the idea of running his fingers through those soft curls.   
  
“You have so much potential yet,” Roose told him plainly.   
  
The boy flinched at the word. “Potential?” he rasped, heart breaking as he spoke. “I was a king… and now...” He choked up, glancing aside.   
  
“Now you’re doing exactly what you were meant to do.”  
  
In short order, it was no longer his memories he was choking on, but  _Roose_ instead.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> [tumblr](http://deathtouch.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/deathtouchxx)


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